thinking about how of course billions is about people trapped in eternal battle world, and trapped because they won't ever exit, and don't want to because that's the only way they can define their idea of themself or like move through life, to the degree they have to just create or find another battle if one ends or they don't have enough going on at once or they're unhappy about anything & can only respond to that the only way they'll respond to anything: finding someone to consider a target to Defeat & being like nice, i'm so competent & active as a person, so with any other issues in my life, i'm sure it's not my fault at least

and it's been clear that to be someone at the Center of the show means needing to be inflexible enough to never leave that life, which also probably means never engaging in genuine self-reflection besides like, fuming in distress for 5 sec & then immediately searching for blame for someone else, or calling up your designated moral supporter who'll tell you you're upset b/c you're very complex & sympathetic & maybe if you do [xyz] you'll be able to Keep Winning, so like, don't worry, we'll never get too off track here. you have someone like connerty who cares so much about playing by the rules ft. ethics, but he was also someone completely inflexible who would give a shit like "ha ha you broke the law" and be Defeated b/c like yeah damn you do got him in that situation. he may then have gained the flexibility to throw a punch when he's already imprisoned but he's still just gotta retire & pursue some completely different goals

this in contrast with like, what a coincidence (surely not) that the more flexible characters are the ones who also do introspect & reflect & genuinely think about & question themselves ever, & how even beyond that, being in this world of people who overwhelmingly are thee opposite & aiming for a static sense of self & thus strategy for navigating life & all interactions & situations, the more reflective parties also tend to accept both Blame & the fruitlessness of pushing for more/different/better from the people & relationships & situations they're amongst. those willing to take on responsibility at all surrounded by people casting all of it off, always, w/the former already primed to take blame & the latter primed to be looking to find the blame in anyone else, a powerful mismatch....which allows the flexible parties to also put up with shit for longer lol like if they got fed up that quickly or recognized the dead-end here they'd just leave the show lol. like wow can't believe taylor spent their whole life already stuck having to deal with someone who's so very much like these bullshit central men & those trying to emulate them, & perhaps also then have a lifetime of experience extending endless patience & sympathy with little to no expectations for more from people who put up with such a bullshit man & his effects on everything around him, like, what do you mean taylor's mom hasn't seen them b/c douglas didn't want to see them b/c he wasn't yet motivated enough to have to exercise begrudging shows of basic respect. whilest sure seems like taylor felt more concern & basically stated their responsibility re: trying to make their relationship with their dad work / basically take on the task of making his life work for him according to his sense of himself (genius! who deserves the recognition thusly!) and doesn't seem to take on this role re: their mom, who nevertheless is just presumed to move closer to them along w/douglas. and here's taylor never truly putting their foot down re: wendy, no matter what, able to have no real positive expectations in how wendy treats them or thinks of them, but also always able to extend sympathy / decent treatment themself

thinking of like team ben out here as the Nicer axe cap or mpc people who also happen to be people absorbing the L's, blaming themselves for being at the bottom of the hierarchy & being subjected to the always negative treatment doled out to them accordingly, and, winstonesquely, still generally like extending genuine gestures of amicability, efforts of constructive actual communication, etc, & this being shut down & likely punished by all the people around them who won't handle that kind of thing. that Of Course nobody's actually supported around here, like, at best they'll get some kind of "well you're actually talented & valuable :)...." (so why aren't they already treated in a way such that they're aware of this?) "....so just have more confidence already god!" wherein (a) again that just means it's Their Fault that they're having a miserable time at the hands of others & (b) their having "confidence" doesn't really mean like, an emotional buffer between their sense of self-esteem & the message of inferiority in how they're treated, it has to mean externally acting different in some ways, more like A Winner, more like everyone else. the limits of ben trying to sometimes be a buffer for tuk as that kind of friend/mentor role, where either it simply fails or ben's Help is more unilateral "correction." that generally only any increase in aggressive hostility gets them anywhere, and really not that far.

the way dollar bill could always act however he wanted & they could always clean up his messes / save him from himself / just flatout blame other people for what dollar bill did to them or someone else; success in being a mini axe in that way for sure. dollar bill going off the rails over his literal dollar bill & that's not a problem, he's validated b/c he's upset, & b/c rudy knew he'd be upset it's really all rudy's fault....who just so happens to be more of a loser, what with his glasses & possible masturbation ever and all. whilest even when dollar bill is like every season being shit at his job & life, well, just find a loser to trounce while everyone ignores this, cheers you on, takes on responsibility for fixing things for you, blames the person targeted probably. dollar bill couldn't even do in office transphobic hate crime physical attacks, or that but while yelling the r word at the autistic guy he's already harrassing & threatening, without it being really basically the target's fault, & hey, as long as no investors are watching. and we're still dragging dollar bill back to the office b/c uhhh yeah!!

& then of course there's winston, who, like a loser, says things in real efforts for real communication with others, that they winningly can only bring themselves to respond to as "he's not allowed to talk, that's out of line, i have to punish/deny this to reassert our respective status" except for, sometimes, taylor actually communicating in turn, or even simply receiving the information. winston in a duo with the very winning & worthy rian, being something of a quasirival for 5 seconds but even during then, and since, trying to be amicable to establish an actually positive dynamic, trying for actual communication, engaging flexibly & actively based on her feedback & her terms & etc to try to find some more success; versus rian completely inflexible, unwilling to respond to efforts to communicate, unwilling to have an actual relationship with any flexibility & genuineness in turn, or see winston as a person of course, and engage with real emotions. which is hardly an exclusive response of hers, like, everyone else is just the same, she's just also the one interacting with him more often and personally bullying him & standing next to him & immediately responding with clear contempt when he tries things like earnest expressions of "hey rian could you not do what you just did b/c it makes me feel like shit, probably b/c that's what you're trying to do" and "hey that was cool what you just did b/c it makes me feel like—" b/c like, what a loser. real winners cannot handle engaging with another person as a person. when you can just make up & stick to a narrative about "oh but i don't hate winston, who i feel is inherently beneath me. i wouldn't wanna feel bad about killing him, not when i could feel fine about administering more of a death by a thousand cuts with some other people helping out & hey maybe it was their cut that did it after all....but also if you're like 'pwease' then eh sure" or that winston's got a lesser inner existence anyways, some classic dehumanization, no complexity there, & hurting him isn't real, & it'd never be you in his position anyways! especially the more you're buying into "yeah i'm more of a person / more deserving / more real & sympathetic & correct than him :)" & being cheered on as you act that out. pretty cringe of winston to be earnest, flexible, openly trying & wanting & needing things, sounds bad & silly. unlike the winners around him who really cannot handle him or any of these things about him. of course near equivalent in loserness, tuk, is the person with the realest most amicable relationship with him. both of them too incompetent to realize their mutual failings in this, ha ha, real winners are repulsed & fleeing & can't handle a basic exchange with either of them. and the imbalance re: how little others are willing to give them in interest, consideration, time, words, etc, while they're always trying Too Much re: the disinterested others, totally proves their unworthiness

winston and tuk always having to stay at the bottom of the hierarchy, winston only able to be shitted on even as he extricates himself, ending up surrounded by people who will only act "correctly" according to their superior roles & this mf wags only processing anything as "did that reinforce my being a correct/winning person???" & only responding by trying to reassert to others how much of a winner they are, which requires establishing a loser, and crushing them. winston having recognized / gotten fed up with a bullshit scenario & had realistic expectations of those around them & spent those years being treated like shit yet never crushing an enemy to restore his ego & also spent those years trying to communicate and work with others and share actual info and make actual connections & now independently choosing to make a big shift in his life so that things can be different? is definitely the contemptible loser here while everyone else looks very good faffing around for an episode getting some temporary ego boosts & being very "correct" in every response to winston, even pointing out that rian even noticing something genuine & positive from winston in the absence of it anywhere is first & foremost incorrect, which rian will Also immediately drop in the face of that "well yeah it's more correct to prioritize Anything else. like that he's pathetic & mpc 5ever" like wuh oh rian being doomed from 5x08 "time to embrace acting more correct now" & being truly inflexible from that point on, never had a moment of conflict not resolved by [ignoring that] &/or again just getting someone more correct to declare how it'll be answered. taylor at their most flexible and Taylorest and most juxtaposed with central men & static ossified "winners" when they are also at their best in engaging with winston. taylor Like winston & vice versa in so many substantial & interesting ways, despite their relating to / sympathizing with / devoting much more effort & interest to people more like the central men. that here we are, when taylor might have to give up on Being A Winner, someone who'll walk away with status & resources & a seamless transition into some established business foundation, to really get the wins that matter, against pince, &/or to clock out of a sunk cost factory, &/or to not have strangled every part of themself that can be in conflict with this general situation into eternal dormancy. don't You dare blame latency lol, the taylor who gets to exist outside the conditional "well i guess you're a winner who's very useful to me, like dumping work on you & blaming you if it goes awry. and you can act like a Real winner in the ways that really matter (crushing people)"....is also a taylor who can be rejected & shut down & shut out & have their value denied & be treated shittily despite even knowing they'd be / are good at this shit, superlatively even, & could never feel okay just being regarded as a tool stashed away at someone's disposal. & Has been treated shittly & is liable to accept blame, unilateral responsibility for other's selves & feelings & actions & lives, & marinate in self-loathing. while people who refuse any introspection, questioning, responsibility, awareness, etc, & refuse to handle the least of genuine interactions/relationships with others as real people, are glad to scoff at them & dismiss them & imply or assert their superiority, like, wow have You got a lot to learn, or maybe you can't b/c you're inherently inferior. all just like re: winston!

tl;dr shoutout to the flexible characters who like can & do reflect & change things up actually, just so happening to always be Losing for this in the [only way to win is not to play] arena of fake winners seeing if they can consider themselves superior to everyone else & only even possibly correct always & forever, in the pyramid scheme of social hierarchy & also capitalism

Spyro's bubble breath curse powerup drawn by @antirepurp ! I forgot I was going to upload these two as well!!

I still love these so much, both because of Purp's artstyle and the fun line-of-actionish poses! I don't think I came up with this idea for how Spyro's bubble breath from Enter the Dragonfly could work, as I've seen other concepts in writing and art for it before too. But this is my favorite idea, that it can block and capture "energy" or magic temporarily. An idea I've been looking forward to make use of in a certain adventure fanfiction.

games w. species euphoria

please don't spoil any of the games with stories in the replies or reblogs!

Ori and the Blind Forest - felinekin, maybe some kind of fae or angel kin too ori is very good little creature design and it moves around so fluidly but there's zero customization, if you vibe with ori it's great and if you don't, might not be for you. it's a puzzle platformer similar gameplay-wise to hollow knight (but not as difficult)

Hollow Knight - bugkin, ghostkin, voidkin difficult but very pretty and atmospheric. i've played some of it before getting stuck/being unable to progress because i'm not good at video game. hard platformer with boss fights.

Stray - robotkin, catkin this is one i've been meaning to play for ages (and haven't gotten around to pirating yet, cough) Stray is a 3d game set in a cyberpunk/sci fi world. You play as a tabby cat trying to find its way back to its home and it looks stunning. I assume the story is great, too.

Roblox Creatures of Sonaria - there are so many creature designs there you're bound to find something that's youcore their colors can be customized. It's a multiplayer survival game so it's more stressful than the other games on this list, you gotta be trying not to die the whole time

Animal Jam Classic / Animal Jam Play Wild - lots of real world animals you can dress up and change the colors and patterns of your animals. ajc is in 2d and ajpw is in 3d and has more animal options, but i find ajpw really confusing personally.

William and Sly/William and Sly 2 - foxkin old flash games available as a set on steam, a quest platformer where you run around a pretty forest environment as a red fox and find various things. the music is lovely, both games have a great atmosphere, played it a ton as kid on armor games. i dont think i ever even finished either game i just loved running around as sly (in the second game there are also little kitten-fairies that you can collect and that follow you around)

Postmouse - mousekin free on steam, 3d puzzle platformer where you're a mouse that delivers letters. it can get a little obtuse and confusing at times which is why i never finished it, but it's very charming and free to play! you run around all these huge and pretty environments as a fancy-dressed little mouse .

Lost Dream 1 and 2 - foxkin abstract/stylized/polygonal walking simulator where you play as a red fox. doesn't seem to be much story and the reviews are mixed because walking sims like this need to be like, your cup of tea.

Spyro Reignited - dragonkin of course had to mention such an OG dragon game. never played it but like, it's spyro. cartoony 3d platformer in a fantasy environment.

Oneshot - catkin pixel rpg where you play as a cat child and the gimmick is that you only have one life. the steam page tags it as story rich and having multiple endings/story choices you can make, and the graphics are beautiful, the whole game seems to be made of dark colors and poppy accents

Honorable Mentions:

Way to the Woods - an in-development 3d game where you play as a deer and fawn exploring different enviroments.

The Isle - an early access survival MMO where you play as a dinosaur and try to stay alive.

feel free to add more in reblogs, i know i'm missing a lot of classics but i'm getting tired

I've been wanting to do this forever so why not now

RATING SPYRO'S MODELS IN EACH GAME (these are the models themselves, not like his designs outside of the games in like promotional materials and stuff. That may be a later post idk yet)

Spyro 1

The classic Spyro design. The small line of blue scales. The little yellow gradient on his cheeks and snout in cutscenes. The brown horns and big, expressive eyes. Oh yeah, this is prime Spyro right here. Will take points because the wings are very small and awkwardly shaped, which to be fair it is 1998 playstation so like. What can you do.

9/10

Spyro 2/3

Now this? This is perfection here. Takes everything the Spyro 1 model does and does it better. Still has the little blue scales I love so much and the brown horns, but with much better wing shape and size. Top tier Spyro model. Might be my favorite of all of them, even.

10/10

Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly

I like how they decided to texture in more scales during the jump from ps1 to ps2. Sadly this may be the only thing i like about this model. It's not the worst thing i've ever seen, but it looks so... gummy? Some of the details look kind of odd to me, like the yellow claws and unevenly spaced lines along his chest. This also removed the blue scales lining around his underbelly and adds the yellow horns which I'm not crazy about. A few points for still trying to be mostly loyal to the ps1 designs shape wise.

5/10

Spyro: A Hero's Tail

Now this is a pretty good improvement from the enter the dragonfly model. I'm not crazy about the snout shape, looks a bit too round and i think the nostrils are a bit too high on his face, but overall a good spyro! the introduction of the purple eyes is cool too (personally im a red eyed spyro truther but still)

7/10

Spyro: Shadow Legacy

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA HOLY FUCK HAHAHHAHA. okay okay okay to be fair this one is a ds game and spyro himself is suuuuper small on the screen so like. of course he'd be low poly. does get some points for spyro having sharper and more mean features. though you probably wouldn't notice in the game

4/10

Legends Spyro New Beginning/Eternal Night

Might be nostalgia talking but I actually still really like this design. I like his snout shape and more lightning bolt shaped horns, and i find his head and back spikes kinda cool, even if i like the classic shape of them better, it works for this design. His horns are a tad bit more brownish (it's more visible in the game), which you know I love. This spyro is overall very cute!! Maybe a bit too cute, but I enjoy him

8/10

Legends Spyro Dawn of the Dragon

I don't. like him.

the back legs look fucked up, the wings are way too thick at the base by the shoulders and then they're so small but then get so long by the end. i like the little added scales along his underbelly. that's about it. you would think taking the previous model and making him older would be easy but i guess not. a point because you can tell he's older and if you only look at his head the model is nice. not the rest though. god.

2/10

Skylanders

This might be controversial but i dont care. i actually like the skylanders spyro design. he leans more into the cool factor than cute, which i can appreciate, and he kinda reminds me of a pug a little bit and i really like pugs. he's got kind of a beast/monster factor i really like. i love love love the horn shape and the big claws, and the yellow claws dont even look awkward here!! the red eyes really pop too! i think he's really fun

7/10

side note i also LOVE spyro's design in the skylanders show too ESPECIALLY HIS COLORING LOOK HOW NICE HE LOOKS it takes the best parts of the game model and improves it. i know this isn't from the game but it's too good not to include.

9/10

Spyro Reignited

I do really really really love this model, it's near perfect. perfectly balances the cute/coolness factor. the shapes are all good, the wings are small but not too small. love the darker scales across his body. his little thumbs are so fun too. honestly this is the best they could have done for a remodel of the first 3 games. only taking off a point because im not crazy about the colors, i prefer the darker purples and brown horns.

9/10

BONUS: CRASH ON THE RUN

Im so torn on this one because on one hand the cartoony stylization really works in these models. i love the bigger snout, i think it's fun, and i LOVE LOVE LOVE taking his head spikes and kind of splitting them up like hair. that's so fun! but on the negative end I HATE THE WAY HIS FEET LOOK SO MUCH OH MY GOD. they're like wretched lumps of clay with little claws jammed into them. granted this was for a mobile app BUT STILL. the feet really just fuck me up a lot

6/10

Okay that is all thanks for reading <3 maybe next time i'll rate spyro renders or something <3

I just saw another one of those "teenager thinks that people give up all hobbies and interests as soon as they turn 30" posts and idk like yeah the sentiment is sad but what's also sad is like. You gotta wonder if that teenager's parents didn't have any hobbies and that's where they got that idea from. I grew up regularly going with the whole fam to my parents' best friends' house, where the grownups played DND and rail baron while the kids played in the yard. My mom was a voracious reader who also obsessively played Spyro the dragon on PlayStation. My dad was a goddamn civil war reenactor (please before you come for me he had both uniforms). He still is regularly booked to lead educational tours of battlefields, which he loves. I knew my mom's favorite actor was Robert Redford. She took me, age 11, to see the fellowship of the ring in theaters because she loved the books so much and she knew I would too - and she was right, bc the second we got home I pulled the books off the shelf and immediately read them. My parents played games - often with us! - and had interests and hobbies outside of us, but they also shared those things with us, and that was such a positive experience for me. I have never bought into the idea that there's an age limit on fun, bc that was not the example I had. When I see posts like that I feel bad for the kids and their parents both, bc it doesn't have to be like that. And I hope as the kids making those posts grow they learn that lesson for themselves. We don't have to grow out of fun, and we can make more of it as we age.

Wait THE legend of Spyro trilogy?? The one with Cynder??? Oh man that was like, one of my absolute favorite video games ever! All I ever see is hate for it. Glad to see someone else likes it too!

I've seen soooo much hate for those games but tbh I just love them, I don't care what others think about it.

Macro/micro for the fetish thing 📏

Ok, I know this ask is because of that entry in Anne Rice's journal where she watched Jack & The Beanstalk (she misremembered, I'm pretty sure this was Jack the Giant Slayer) so she could mack on Ian McShane and was annoyed the giants in it weren't hot enough, but obviously this is relevant to me because I draw micro/macro applicable stuff for a couple fandoms, or I have anyway.

The answer to this is, however, complex! Yes, in a way, but also not really, in a different way.

So first off, I like to write pornography, but it can't really get me off if I was the one who wrote it. Same with fanart. It's a writing challenge with a smack of pay-it-forward, or the sex is inherent to something I am trying to capture, but if I write it myself I'm too close to it; I remember too much of the process or mentally go into editing mode.

But as a result I tend to think of fetishes as both multipliers and ingredients.

As a consumer, I tend to think of fetishes as multipliers. Like, something that you're totally neutral on is a 1x. Something you just can't stand at all, total horny-killer, is a 0x. Hypothetically there's no upper bound but, say, 3x would mean the story is 3x hotter to you because it features that fetish. An example for me would be scat. Hard 0x. The second I see it, I'm out. No matter what else is going on, the multiplier is 0; the story is at a level of 0 hotness. The earlier answer on oviposition is like a .1x. I haven't run into a story with it that was good enough to get me off, but Bloodchild got close, so I'm saying with the deftest of hands, it can work. Micro/macro is maybe like a situational 1.2x. It's a little bump but it's not going to be make or break per se. It could be in a story where it added nothing to me.

Because that's where we get into fetishes as ingredients.

When I'm thinking about an effective piece of erotica, it's got components, right? It's expressing some notion. It'll have different ingredients in it that make up the whole, that make for a cohesive work. I do think that micro/macro can enhance some recipes a bit, but more than that, it's a virtually essential ingredient to others. Let's say you're into werewolf porn. If the werewolf is like, same-entity-size.... I dunno. Like I guess. But isn't the werewolf theme usually leaning on some sort of power dynamic that the savage nature of the werewolf highlights? The werewolf is going to be 140 lbs? Sure you don't want it to be a bit more Big? Or, to make a different point, more Small? That might take you in a funnier direction, more like a comedy premise perhaps, but something's being communicated by the inclusion of some kind of noticeable size difference.

Let's now take it over to tentacle porn. God, I tried. I have on an occasional whim thrown my lot in with Kurt Eichenwald and it just does not take. I can't get off to it. I'd love it if I could. But anyway, let's say someone's being pointedly caressed by an octopus. You can't have that be just a regular-size octopus. Kind of pathetic. Obviously, that octopus has to be bigger than an octopus should be. "Well, what if you add more octopuses, like an octopus gangbang?" Sure, that might work for some people. But for me it comes off as lacking in confidence. Oh, you had to bring all your little octopus friends to nail this twink? Sad.

Now, I am a scaley straight-up. The only limiting aspect to this, for me, is that most scalies seem to have gotten into it from like... Spyro the Dragon? And they're really cartoony. Doesn't hit. As a kid, I had books on ancient Egypt, and I was intrigued by Sobek. Also we had a caiman. And my mother would find people in the classified ads who were trying to sell giant snakes and pay for her kids to go pet (but not buy) the giant snakes so we wouldn't be afraid of snakes, like she was, so as a child I was just overwhelmingly exposed to giant (16'+) snakes. My mother would go dump us off at places where big snakes were so we could observe big snakes, like reptile shows and the reptile house at the zoo. The result of this was super funny but suffice to say I am not afraid of snakes. (Not into vore though! Does nothing for me! Responsible owners don't live-feed.) I want to be super clear: I do not want to fuck animals, never have, but I did want to nail Bleu in Breath of Fire more than you can possibly imagine. However, if I'm doing scaley stuff in particular, one simply has to admit that micro/macro is the baking soda in that quickbread. It's not the part that makes that fetish work, but it's certainly more likely to turn out the way you intended if you put a little bit of it in there. When I made Cardassians huge in my DS9 redesigns, however, that was mostly in service of it being funny since I was a major bottom-Garak advocate, the bigger they are the funnier that is. Also like, whiny old queen giant lizardman is just fun and has room to spitball where like, I don't know, a more straightforward big hot lizard man would utterly bore me. It can't all be baking soda.

What are your main inspirations. I love your art.

You have no idea about the can of worms you just opened-

Truthfully; a lot! I take inspiration from everything and everything. That's what artists do :) but there's a very very long list of books and shows and movies I've watched/read that have stuck with me.

As a child I had a weird bunch of VHS tapes, video games, and books. Mom and Dad was a comic collectors, and dad was a musician so I got a lot of interesting songs too. Some notable bangers are: Yellow Submarine (the animated movie), the sonic movie, a few episodes of Pokemon (the one I remember most is the island of giant pokemon and when Pikachu gets ramen), and Spyro. I also watched a fair share of Disney and Pixar, Bug's Life and Nightmare Before Christmas being my favorite.

Sonic is definitely what I remember drawing the most, tbh. My first OCs were fan children! But animation was my absolute favorite thing ever, and I wanted to draw so good-

Once I was in my early to late teens, I got my fingers on the Internet, (and learned to pirate) my horizons broadened! My favorite artist at the time made a comic called Random Doom, a slice of life comic about their gen 4 team, and I literally would not be here today without them. They have no idea I exist and I'm happy with that. I haven't followed them in years but I remember them fondly. Another big artist I followed (and still do!) is Bechnokid! Her art is such an inspiration to me, even now! I want to steal it and put it in my mouth

Other notable things: the first two how to train your dragons, glass animals, Spiderverse, Cartoon Saloon, You Are Umasou, Indie Horror projects too long to list, Don't Starve, Lord of the Rings, old fairy tales, MegaMan (especially the Mangas drawn by Hitoshi Ariga), Steven Universe, the original Teen titans, Avatar the last Airbender, Bobs Burgers, Futurama, and honestly probably so so so so much-

Been following the mini updates for your game, and it's really wonderfully made! There's a lot much personality in it. If it's alright to ask, did you have an inspirations when you were creating it? I feel a little bit of Spyro and Yoshi's Story. Loved both games, and I absolutely love dragons and platformers too so I'm really interested in picking this game up to try it :) Have a wonderful day.

thank you so much! Cavern of Dreams is chiefly inspired by adventure & platformer games on the N64, like Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time, although it also has broader influences, like astronomy and dreams (hence the title lol...). Yoshi's Story in particular did influence a few design elements!! so good eye!

i'm so glad to hear that you like what you've seen and i hope you'll be able to enjoy the game!! and thank you to everybody for all the lovely things you've said about it in comments/tags/etc, it means the world. okay, that's enough outta me!

Would you smash or pass a tinkerbat from Shantae

Smash.

I love ambiguous silly little characters like that. Which is why I'm very fond of the Egg thief from Spyro and Marvin the Martian.

I don't know too much about tinkerbats though, the Shantae series is largely unknown to me.

All this love for ff8 flying around tumblr right now has got me thinking. 

So many people were so moved by this game that twenty-five years later we’re all banging our fists on the table and crying about it? It leaves me stunned. For so long I thought I was the only one. 

[Huge text post under the cut. As I wrote this I realized just how much soul-baring I was doing. This was emotional to write and just as emotional to share. Thank you to those of you who bravely paved the way with your personal stories so that I would feel strong enough to do the same. Sorry this got stupid-long lol]

My own journey with ff8, as it turns out, is very much tied to my journey in discovering writing. It overwhelms me to think of how my life is so much better thanks to both things. And how my life was potentially saved by both things.

Back in the early aughts I was not privileged enough to have any gaming consoles. My best friend, though, had just gotten a PS1 and the very first game she had was ff8. I would go over to her house every single Sunday afternoon and sit, transfixed, as she played through it. I had never seen anything like it before. We would read the dialogue boxes out loud (I was always Selphie, Zell, and Rinoa, she was always Squall, Irvine, and Quistis) and she was kind enough to save the important cut scenes on separate memory slots so I could see whatever she had played throughout the week. 

I remember adoring the cutesyness of Squall and Rinoa’s dynamic and crying when I saw the ending. But there was something more to it. I felt such an intense desire to have the game for myself, to play it alone and absorb everything in it. We finally got a little money and got a PS1, but my mom would only get games that the whole family could enjoy, so it was Crash and Spyro for a long time until I finally, finally got ff8 for myself. 

The intensity of Squall and Rinoa’s drama and romance was so important to my passionate little teenaged heart. He jumped out into space to save her!! And she brought him back from time compression with just her love!!! It was the story that set the bar for romantic love. 

And Squall…damn, I remember sitting, unblinking, at the scene when he’s curled up in bed…At age sixteen, seventeen, watching Squall voice these things was big:

“I’m fine all by myself now. I have all the skills I need to survive. I’m not a child anymore. That’s a lie. I don’t know anything. I’m confused.”

At the time, I didn’t know why I was so spellbound by that scene, and many of the other scenes of Squall’s inner monologues, but it makes so much sense now. I was a child made to believe I had to be fully competent and capable from way too young an age, parentified and emotionally stunted, and I was about to be kicked out into the world when I didn’t know a single fucking thing about it. 

But my love for ff8 was very private. I read some fanfic to extend that feeling of being in Squall and Rinoa’s world, but other than that, I never outwardly expressed how much this game stuck with me. I was definitely an awkward, shy kid, and luckily I found a group of weirdos in high school who had no fear in sharing their love for things like video games and anime and what-have-you. But still! Even with that! I barely engaged with the few friends who had a love for ff8. It was all very intimate for me. It was my private world. And part of me was scared of taking it too far, even amongst the nerds who took everything too far. I didn’t want to stand out in that way. I had the overwhelming urge to appear normal, and sane. And anyway I didn’t know how to articulate it.

There is a scene from my college years that is so burned in my memory and I think highlights this. I was in a very small major and so I had all the same classes with the same small group of people. In these classes was a very cool girl who I admired. One day someone brought up video games and I remember feeling paralyzed, like, “I can’t bring up my weirdly intense passion for this game! Everyone will think I’m so strange!” so I lied and said I had never played a single video game in my life. And in comes Cool Girl and starts going on and on about how much she loved final fantasy 8 and I could not fathom it. I stayed silent. I was not cool enough to go back on my lie and admit that I was just as into that game, if not more into it, and that I still thought about it regularly.

I kept my love of the game to myself, and played it once or twice when I went home on college breaks. It was enough. I was busy, and burnt out, and turns out, severely depressed on top of it all. 

That first major depressive episode lasted years. I managed to get out of it on my own through a variety of life experiences and found myself in my mid-twenties, looking for love. And what was more, I knew I had to find my Squall. I had to find someone who would constantly be willing to save me from my own flightiness, from my overly-passionate heart that didn’t think things through and constantly caused my own messes, and tell me (with brutal honesty) when to knock my shit off.

And I found him!

What I didn’t know is that I was really Rinoa all along. And Rinoa, my friends, cinnamon roll that she is, has a lot of shit to work out, too. 

It was helpful as I started spiraling into depression again: what if Rinoa and Squall were together and happy, but Rinoa had a major emotional breakdown in her late twenties? I imagined it obsessively. Thinking of their future was the only way I could fall asleep at night. (lol, any of this sound familiar, @angelosearch? <3)

Their story took such a hold on me. I could feel it wanting to scream itself out of my fingertips to the point that I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I started secretly typing it up, and every time I sat at the keys, I felt better.

And I stopped disassociating. I started sleeping better. I stopped hiding in the bathroom to cry at all hours of the day. I stopped thinking that I didn’t deserve to be here. I stopped therapy. 

I felt like I had been given a second chance at life. 

About a year ago, I was finally ready to consider posting my ff8 fanfic to share with the world. I had been writing it for over a year, and brewing it in my head for (get this) about eight years before that.

I could tell, though, that I was not a Good Writer. So I put on my bravest face and went searching for a beta. I immediately found one, my amazing @failed221b-chill, who I’ve gushed about before. And my world blossomed. I discovered the true joy that writing brings me, and even just writing this essay is way better than any therapy session I’ve ever had. 

I’m finally coming into my own. I’m finally realizing I had no reason to hide my passionate self. I have to share my inner world - it’s what makes me who I am, and only in that way can I truly connect with those around me. In fact, I literally went and bought an ff8 tank top and wore it in public yesterday and felt like a fucking superhero for doing so. 

So. All that said. I’m so incredibly grateful to be here in this moment, sharing all this love for a game that clearly has affected so many lives for the better. Happy anniversary, Final Fantasy VIII! And to anyone who read this far, I love you.

Please tell us about the Cinder au I love Spyro!!!

LAUGHS EVILLY YOU'VE ACTIVATED MY TRAP CARD

Okay so basically my au focuses on rewriting Cynder's story from Legends to better fit the Reignited universe while also introducing Ember and Flame into the mix. Here's their designs as I have them currently!!!

Now I'll put the lore under a readmore-

Cynder is a young dragon who originates from the Magic Crafters homeworld. Outcasted by her peers and overlooked by her elders in favor of the child hero, Spyro, she runs away. Jealous and angered over the unfairness of her situation. She stumbles inside of a cave where she finds a large, black, glowing crystal. It whispers to her, beckons her. She lays a paw on it, entranced, and blacks out. She awakes to find herself in a nightmare world. One twisted and ugly full of her fears and insecurities. She eventually finds Him. The Nightmare King, shrouded in darkness. Only his eyes able to be seen. He speaks to her and appeals to her emotions. Manipulating her and promising that she will be loved by all is she can help free him from his prison. Cynder, a young and desperate child, agrees. She awakes, her body changing, her scales darkening, her horns growing sharper, and chains forming around her neck and ankles. Marks of the nightmare king appearing on her scales. Now starts her task to free him. She becomes a terror, wielding elements of darkness to aid her in battle. She must steal a crystal from each dragon homeworld and lay them together in the abandoned Nightmare temple in dreamweavers to summon him back to the waking world.

Along her journey she meets Flame, Spyro, and Ember who she defeats in battle. Spyro being the first she beats, as he overestimates his abilities due to his previous wins. This spawns a NEED to defeat her and he chases her all across the dragon realms. She meets Flame in Peace Keepers. He boasts how he can easily defeat her, having a huge ego. But he's all bark and no bite. Her kicking his ass just crumples his self esteem completely (think teru from mp100) Spyro convinces him to join forces and they continue pursuit. They fight her together in Beast Makers and are defeated, but with quite the struggle this time. The last world she visits, Dream Weavers, is where we meet Ember. Ember is the hardest opponent she faces. Being the princess of the homeworld and also most gifted dreamwalker gives her a huge upper hand. Ember, during the battle is able to see inside Cynder's mind for a brief moment and sees the corruption she's under. And it shocks Ember so much it gives Cynder time to defeat her and continue her journey to the temple. Ember is HORRIFIED bc she KNOWS who the nightmare king is. Malefor. An ancient dragon who once overtook the lands with his creatures of terror and destruction. Every dream weaver who is set to rule is taught this history and made to meet him in the dreamscape to understand truly what a monster he is. Ember screwed up when she met him tho, and a piece of him escaped. Growing that crystal found in Magic Crafters.

Cynder makes it to the temple and lays out all the crystals in order, ready to summon her King. Spyro, Flame, and Ember all confront her, but it's already too late. She frees him from the nightmare realm. The mass amount of power she uses knocks her out, the portal she opened beginning to suck her in. Ember, in a state of pity for her rescues her last minute and takes her with the group to safety. When Cynder wakes up she is PISSED. (This is pretty much all the most detailed plot I have so far the rest is story beats) After that I want Cynder to have a moment of clarity and realize through a really hard hitting scene that Malefor was just using her. It takes her a while but she slowly reforms and tries to make amends. Her and Ember have a love hate relationship. Ember feeling guilt over being the cause of this in the first place, but also hating Cynder's guts for what she did. And Cynder just hating her in general akhdjs. Flame being very skeptical and the hardest to warm up to Cynder. Kinda taking a Sparx like role from Legends? Except less annoying bc fuck Legends Sparx fr. Spyro I'm still debating on tbh. I want him to be really headstrong and like child hero syndrome?? And Cynder eventually becomes like bad influence big sis to him?? But yeah they all create a found family thing and figure out a way to defeat Malefor for good

[ Hello Everyone! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and have acclimated back into your usual schedules! I'm here to say that despite my schedule being a bit fuller, that I want to keep my blogs active this year! That includes the Santas! ]

[ I've just gone on a massive cleanse of my old blogs, where I used to have 10+ blogs open and nagging at me to be used, I now have 4 left. These 4 blogs are the ones that I think I'm the most passionate for! ]

[ Santaverse of course will always be here, but I'm taking a different approach to how I manage it all year long that I'll talk about in another post! It includes having a smaller roster until the holidays, and even making art for any inbox asks! ]

[ @gnorcx is going to remain open too! I've put so much love into these little npcs, that I couldn't bear to leave them now! There's a few new Spyro blogs on the scene too, so this'll be a good time for the boys to disrupt any peace haha! ]

[ @allstars-apt is going to make a comeback soon! Truth be told, I haven't stopped writing the All-Stars? Literally every day on discord I have at least one All-Star doing something. I want to bring that energy to Tumblr! I have so much contained lore for that blog, I need to give the blog a fresh coat and show you all just how much the Apartments have grown! ]

[ Lastly, @nintoondo is staying! I have such a massive LOVE for Nintendo's cartoons, and lately, I've been really soaking up 80s Nintendo media? So my musings for this blog are through the ROOF. I primarily want to work on the blog on weekends, but expect a comeback very soon! ]

[ Well!! That's it for now y'all! I'm sorry I keep disappearing, but truth be told, it's the friends I've made here that keep bringing me back. I can't wait to see what this year holds for my little passion projects here! Until then, have a nice 3 day weekend everyone! ]

Yeah sorry to repeat the same complaints everyone else has but, yeah the face is too anthro for me, not that that's inherently bad but on Smolder it gives me too much "goofy animal sidekick in a Disney movie" vibes

Lot of people comparing him to the Spyro series which I feel but in there, the dragons there look perfectly cartoony and expressive without falling into this uncanny disney valley

I do love that he's from Camavor tho, finally some love for that region and a look into what it's become since Viego abandoned the place

what fandoms are you in personally/your favourite pieces of media

and how exactly have some inspired your works?????

I don't really consider myself to be in "fandom" so much as I just have a bunch of different things I really like! And I'm definitely one of those people who thinks everything is my favorite thing when I'm back to being fixated on it!

Lately I have been replaying the mysims series that I love so dearly, and looking back I can see a lot of the influences it's had on my writing style.

It's an open secret that my own work was originally inspired by the work of Funamusea, but I'm hoping that I've been able to craft my worlds into something of their own even if they'll always be a bit derivative! Games like MySims, Spyro (Specifically Spyro 2), and Miitopia have heavily influenced my world-building and approach to things as well as the environments I like to create, and I hope I can show that even more over time too!

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

@sproutwings tagged me in this, thanks Sandrine ♥ I'll give it a try!

How many works do you have on AO3? on the Zero_Ducks account, 37 (+1 unrevealed).

What’s your total A03 word count? 393,092

What fandoms do you write for? Only DCU at the moment.

What are your top five fics by kudos? (all of these are Sladick!)

You could be my luck, with 394 Kudos. REALLY? Oh well that's a discovery lol. Dick gets pollened and hides in Slade's safehouse because it's the closest he can get to, hoping Slade isn't home. Slade is in fact right there.

Darling Little Things, with 355 kudos. Also quite the surprise! Omegaverse in which Dick is pregnant with Slade's pup, but hasn't told him out of fear Slade wouldn't want them. Everything goes surprisingly well.

Served Cold, with 338 kudos. This one was expected since it's more than a single chapter and was a pretty anticipated entry of my Sladick series. Slade takes his revenge on a hit that Dick ruined.

lie in your bed the way you made it, with 327 kudos. LMAO. I love this fic. It has to be one of the filthiest I've ever written. A pwp in which Dick took a blow intended for one of Slade's marks, and not wanting him to die, Slade has to take care of his sorry ass.

Slade's lucky day, with 301 kudos. My very first Sladick fanfic! Slade is on a mission in Montenegro, and Dick is too. They end up accidentally and less accidentally helping each other, with some strings attached.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Always. Fandom remains stagnant without interaction, and that's on writers too, not just on readers. Also if I post a fic (which doesn't happen often compared to how many fics I write) is because I want to talk about it with other people!

What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Among those I posted on AO3, probably Losing Game. It's an Eobarryiris fic, and I imagined a potential way it could go well but it ends on a very angsty note (it's a timeloop situation in which they have no idea how to break it, and one of them keeps dying in every cycle so they keep resetting it because they can't let him go).

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? It has to be Darling Little Things, it ends on a very fluffy note.

Do you get hate on your fic? Not regularly but it happened. What hate gets there is promptly deleted, trolls are not to be fed.

Do you write smut? My smut has plot sometimes.

Do you write crossovers? No, the most I can do is "characters from X universe are now in Y universe", but I don't mash-up characters.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Yeah. Long story. Bad ending. It was years ago though.

Have you ever had a fic translated? A couple of times, not from the Zero_Ducks account though!

Have you ever co-written a fic? I co-write pretty often.

What‘s your all-time favourite ship? I am too ADHD to pick one. Speaking of the DC fandom (which I'm here for), Sladick and Eobarry which I'm sure doesn't come as a shock for anyone.

What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Boy I have 200+ WIPs I will never finish, and I really want to finish like 80% of them lmao. Probably Clipped. Based on the fact that I have no idea how to finish it (it's a Bad Guys Won scenario in which all them little birds are captive and in distress)

What’s your writing strengths? Smut!

What’s your writing weaknesses? Being that I'm not a native English speaker, I have a hard time writing in "styles" which penalizes the dialogues. I have no idea how to show that a character is a certain English speaking nationality, how to give them dialectic quirks, how to make them speak in an old fashioned way. I can in my native language though, and it frustrates me so much not to be able to "translate it".

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? If it's just a small line it's okay, it helps the immersion. If it's entire dialogues I don't see why, people don't understand it what's the point.

First fandom you wrote for? Possibly Spyro Gateway to Glimmer when I was 6 lmao.

Favourite fic you’ve ever written? Again strictly speaking for the Zero_Ducks account, I think it's Elegia. It's been almost two years but it holds the test of time, the emotions still feel very raw and the smut is still good (it's that one time Dick's suicidal behavior after Jason's death went a bit overboard, and Slade decided to do something about it whether Dick liked it or not).

I got to tag people now I guess! No pressure folks, it's just the law

@deepwithintheabyss @anawrites3 @waffleinator-inator @ftl-faster-than-life @ladytauria @thesandsofelsweyr and anyone who wants to do this!